Cerrejón
Encyclopedia
Coal mining
The goal of coal mining is to obtain coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content, and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from iron ore and for cement production. In the United States,...
located in the Guajira department in the north of Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
. It is the largest mining operation in Colombia and among the largest open-pit
Open-pit mining
Open-pit mining or opencast mining refers to a method of extracting rock or minerals from the earth by their removal from an open pit or borrow....
coal mines in the world. The legal entity managing the Cerrejón operation is known as Carbones del Cerrejón Ltd. The current Cerrejón company was created in 2002 as a joint venture
Joint venture
A joint venture is a business agreement in which parties agree to develop, for a finite time, a new entity and new assets by contributing equity. They exercise control over the enterprise and consequently share revenues, expenses and assets...
of three international mining firms BHP Billiton
BHP Billiton
BHP Billiton is a global mining, oil and gas company headquartered in Melbourne, Australia and with a major management office in London, United Kingdom...
, Anglo American PLC and Glencore International AG, each with a 33.33% shareholding; in 2006, Glencore's share was bought by Xstrata Plc
Xstrata
Xstrata plc is a global mining company headquartered in Zug, Switzerland and with its registered office in London, United Kingdom. It is a major producer of coal , copper, nickel, primary vanadium and zinc and the world's largest producer of ferrochrome...
.
The output of the mine in 2009 was 30.3 million tons. Cerrejón contributes close to half of Colombia's coal exports of 73.1 million tons, with Colombia ranked fourth among major coal exporting nations as of 2007.
Cerrejón gives its name to the, prehistoric, 46 feet (14 m), Titanoboa cerrejonensis
Titanoboa
Titanoboa, , meaning "titanic boa," is a genus of snake that lived approximately 58 to 60 million years ago, in the Paleocene epoch, a 10-million-year period immediately following the dinosaur extinction event...
, fossils of which have been found in the mining areas.
North Zone
In December 1976, an Association Contract was signed between Carbocol S.A., a state owned Coal Company, and Intercor, an ExxonMobilExxonMobil
Exxon Mobil Corporation or ExxonMobil, is an American multinational oil and gas corporation. It is a direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil company, and was formed on November 30, 1999, by the merger of Exxon and Mobil. Its headquarters are in Irving, Texas...
affiliate, for the development of Cerrejón North Zone. This contract consists of three phases: Exploration (1977-1980), Construction (1981-1986) and Production (1986-2009). In January of 1999, an agreement with the Government of Colombia extended this phase an additional 25 years more, until 2034.
In November of 2000, the Colombian Government sold Carbocol S.A. (50%) participation in Cerrejón North Zone Association Contract, to a consortium, whose members were subsidiaries of BHP Billiton plc, Anglo American plc and Glencore International AG. Later on Glencore sold its participation to Xstrata plc.
In February of 2002, this consortium acquired from Intercor the other 50%, owned by ExxonMobil, thus becoming the sole owner of the Cerrejón north zone. In November of 2002, the merger between Intercor and Carbones del Cerrejón S.A was legalized and Intercor's name was changed today Carbones del Cerrejón Limited, Cerrejón.
Central Zone
This zone has two contracted areas::Central Deposit (Comunidad de El Cerrejón) in production since 1981. After successive contracts with different companies (Domi Prodeco Auxini consortium, Prodeco, Carbones del Caribe and others), it was acquired by Glencore in 1995, thus creating Carbones del Cerrejón S.A. Then, in 1997, Anglo American joined the business and in 2000, BHP Billiton became the third associate.
Oreganal Deposit (State owned), initially contracted between Carbones del Caribe and Colombian state (today Minercol), then in 1995 with Oreganal S.A. who in turn assigned its participation to Carbones del Cerrejón.
Patilla Area
In 2001, through a public bid, this area was assigned to a consortium, whose members are today Carbones del Cerrejón Limited (former Intercor) and Cerrejón Zona Norte S.A., that also belong to subsidiary companies of BHP Billiton plc, Anglo American plc and Xstrata plc.South Zone
Through a bid in 1997, an exploration and exploitation contract of this zone was assigned to a consortium integrated today by subsidiary companies of BHP Billiton plc, Anglo American plc and Xstrata plc. Currently, this zone is at exploration stage.Production
Open-pit mining
Open-pit mining or opencast mining refers to a method of extracting rock or minerals from the earth by their removal from an open pit or borrow....
, in which the
topsoil and other material is cleared away to expose the coal seam.
The coal is loaded onto trucks that carry it to the crushing
facilities and then to two silos, from where it is loaded onto
trains.
The company has its own 150 km (standard gauge
Standard gauge
The standard gauge is a widely-used track gauge . Approximately 60% of the world's existing railway lines are built to this gauge...
) railroad, connecting
the mine to its coal-loading terminal at Puerto Bolívar on the
Caribbean coast. There are two 128-car unit trains, each carrying
12,000 tons of coal per trip. The round-trip time for each train,
including loading and unloading, is about 12 hours. The coal
facilities at the port are capable of loading at peaks of 4,800 tons per hour on
to vessels of up to 175,000 tons of dead weight.
The mine, railroad and port operate 24 hours per day.
Cerrejón directly employs about 5,300 workers, with a further 5,000 approximately
employed by contractors.
The reserves at Cerrejón are low-sulfur, low-ash, bituminous coal
Bituminous coal
Bituminous coal or black coal is a relatively soft coal containing a tarlike substance called bitumen. It is of higher quality than lignite coal but of poorer quality than Anthracite...
.
The coal is mostly used for electric power generation, with some
also used in steel manufacture and house heating. The surface mineable reserves for
the current contract are 330 million tons. However, total proven
reserves to a depth of 300 metres are 3,000 million tons.
See also
- Puerto Bolivar AirportPuerto Bolívar AirportPuerto Bolívar Airport is a private airport located in the Guajira Department of Colombia. The closest city is Uribia. It is located next to the Cerrejón coal terminal and only serves the workers of the area. Only private sector aircraft and Colombia's Aerocivil land at Puerto Bolivar. No...
- TitanoboaTitanoboaTitanoboa, , meaning "titanic boa," is a genus of snake that lived approximately 58 to 60 million years ago, in the Paleocene epoch, a 10-million-year period immediately following the dinosaur extinction event...
, worlds largest prehistoric snake found in Cerrejón mine.
External links
- Cerrejón Coal website. Contains information on operations as well as the company's environmental and community projects.
- http://www.bhpbilliton.com/bb/ourBusinesses/energyCoal/cerrejonCoalCompany.jsp. Information from BHP Billiton on the mine.